Visit to University of King's College Library

Fifteen bookbinding enthusiasts were delighted by Patricia Chalmers’ unique guided tour of King's College Library's Treasure Room on June 12, 2025. Patricia has been Assistant Librarian at King's for many years; the Rare Books and Special Collections have been a particular interest. She has also lectured on The History of the Book. We were given a brief history of the collection, Canada's oldest surviving colonial library. While King's College was founded in 1789, it wasn't until 1800 that a young man, John Inglis, was given a budget and sent to England to acquire books for a library. He did a superb job of purchasing a variety of valuable and rare books, and he did an even better job persuading British institutions to donate items. In the end, he acquired books valued at more than four times his original sum and more than 90% of that original collection is still at this library. Once the group descended to the Treasure Room and was seated around a large table, the show and tell began. Patricia had pulled fifteen items from the collection and she focused on unique bindings. One by one, she displayed the items and then, after ascertaining that we all had clean hands, she allowed the item to be passed around the table, so each person had a close encounter with a historical treasure. What a treat! The items included: an Ethiopian book of psalms, in parchment, with exposed binding, chain stitch, wooden boards, undated a single sheet of parchment, probably 15th France, illuminated with gold leaf two paper books bound in recycled medieval parchment covers incunabula including items that were printed but also had hand illuminated capital letters and decorations full leather bindings with elaborate gold tooling on the covers and spines an enormous Low German version of Luther’s Bible, 1578 (this book can be see in the photo at top with Patricia, and heavy enough to be a murder weapon, she mused) a leather sprinkled panel binding with holes in the cover, indicating that it had come from a chained library, probably Oxford a flora of Denmark and Norway that contained hand-coloured illustrations from engraved copper plates a book published in Halifax in 1832, that included a binder’s ticket on the inside front cover Thank you, Patricia, for sharing your rare book expertise with the group, and especially for letting us fondle all the books! You can read a bit more history of King's College and the King's College Library on their website.

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Submitted by Marilynn Rudi